


Sorry, Right Number

by Lauren (notalwaysweak)



Category: Sagas of Sundry, Sagas of Sundry: Dread
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-04
Updated: 2017-08-04
Packaged: 2018-12-11 02:07:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11704581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notalwaysweak/pseuds/Lauren
Summary: Sat makes the calls to bring them together again.





	Sorry, Right Number

**Author's Note:**

> Pre-Sagas, post-ITTD, during what I imagine would constitute the literal worst gap year ever.
> 
> Sagas of Sundry: Dread characters belong to their respective creators and are used here without thought of financial gain.
> 
> * * *

_We went deep together._  
 _We went into the black together._  
_Would we come out of the black if we went in a second time?_  
_I don't think so._  
_Please God I don't have to call them._  
_Please God._  
\-- Stephen King, _IT_

 

*****

 

Sat makes the calls from a pay phone in the park, feeding nickels and dimes in first, saving the few quarters that she has for long-distance Raina. 

Raina, she thinks, will say no. Raina in her state of not just disbelief but wilful, desperate _un_ belief. 

If she even answers the phone. If any of them answer the phone, because it’s not like they have been. In the time before Black Mountain, she would have gone to their homes and banged on their doors, when she was big bad Sat. But now she is small scared Sat, and she doesn’t even have a home of her own to barge into. 

But first she’ll call Kayden. Kayden, whose number she has had memorized since she first knew what numbers even were. If she turns and looks across the main road, she can see the bristling antennae of the trailer park perfunctorily hidden behind a row of regular houses. 

He’s probably not home anyway. Home has too many things Kayden hates and not enough things Kayden likes. Not that Kayden really _likes_ things anyway; he just has things he hates less than other things. 

“ _What_.” 

Even sleepy and snarly, his voice is ambrosia to her ears, and Sat begins smiling just a little. 

“Kayden, it’s me. It’s Sat.” 

“Sat?” He sounds two thousand percent more awake instantly, like he snorted just a touch of really pure coke. “Sat, Jesus Christ, where have you _been_? Your parents said you moved out, what the hell?” 

“I’ll explain that later. Listen, I was thinking we should get the gang back together. You, me, Tanner and the girls. What do you say? Raina’s gotta be on summer break by now and I think—I think we have some unfinished business.” 

“You’re damn fucking straight we have some unfinished business, Sat, I thought you were _dead_ —” 

Sat ignores this. “You’re always so _melodramatic_ , jeez. I thought we could meet out front of the high school on the twelfth around noon, drive as close as we can to Black Mountain, and hike the rest of the way, like last year.” 

“Like last year,” Kayden echoes. 

Sat does not hear the flatness of his voice, only the implicit agreement. 

She calls Tanner next. 

“Is Kayden coming?” 

“Well, yeah.” 

Tanner sounds like he’s smirking into the phone. Or maybe snarling. Weird. “I’ll see you on the twelfth.” Something smashes in the background. “I, uh, I gotta go.” 

He’s never been much of a talker anyway. 

Sat calls Darby third. To be precise, she calls the library third. She could walk the two miles deeper into town, but she’s preferred to stay around the edges where she can. Two plus two is four, and another two miles on from the library is the hospital, and she doesn’t like that equation. 

Darby plus library almost always adds up to yes. 

Before Sat can even finish saying what she called to say Darby is agreeing vehemently with the idea of a long drive and longer walk and she is _all_ about getting the gang back together. 

Funny; Sat could’ve sworn that Darby hadn’t talked to her for a year. Huh. 

She calls Raina last, plunking her quarters into the phone, checking the number scrawled on her hand and hoping it’s right. The phone hisses and chuckles to itself and then decides to ring. On the other side of the country a voice, not Raina’s, answers and asks her to hold. Sat stares at the phone and at the last few coins in her hand. 

_Plunk_. She can hear the voice calling Raina’s name, and then Raina’s lighter voice calling back, the sound of her feet pattering along a hallway, and then she’s there, the small bright sunbeam of their group that escaped the clouded darkness by going to optimistically shine somewhere else. 

“ _Sat_? Is it really you?” 

Sat reflexively looks down to check. “Uh, yeah, it’s me.” 

“How _are_ you?” Raina sounds like she wants to ask a different question. 

Sat gives her some normal words and then asks her the same thing she asked the other three. 

“Sure, I’ll come along,” Raina says readily. “It’ll be neat to catch up with everyone.” 

_Plunk_. “Do you have anywhere to stay, if you come back?” Sat prays Raina won’t need to crash on the couch that she profoundly does not have. 

“I can stay with my folks. I don’t think they’ve even touched my bedroom.” 

Sat’s smile flickers between true and false. “Really? That’s—that’s great.” 

They make some more words at each other and then Sat runs out of coins. No food tonight. 

But her friends are coming home, and that fills her stomach with warmth. 

She feels like for a year she’s been dialing the wrong numbers and leaving messages with the wrong people, but something about the time of year, something in the air, cleared the phone lines and let her communicate at last. 

She has a few days until their meeting; she can make use of the showers at the high school, shoplift some fresh makeup and paint big bad Sat back on over the top of small scared Sat, and maybe by the twelfth she’ll believe it herself.


End file.
